Love Story
by Zayz
Summary: LJ. “I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain…never knew I could feel so much, and that’s the way I loved you.” T, just to be safe. R&R?


**Synopsis**: LJ. "I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain…never knew I could feel so much, and that's the way I loved you." R&R?

**A/N**: This fic is the result of the extremely-fantastic song "The Way I Loved You," by Taylor Swift, on her new album Fearless. It's a beautiful song regardless of what you think of Taylor herself, so be sure to take a listen.

This was beta-ed by the wonderful **hpobsessedrissa**, who saves my sorry ass whenever I come wailing at her, no matter what. In this holiday season of being grateful, I give thanks to Rissa, who puts up with all my shit and made sure this little tale was the best it could be before I put it up. So thanks again, darling, and you shall most likely hear from me again in 2009, lol.

I hope you enjoy this and please do leave a review on the way out! The site made that button all big and sexy now; you officially have no excuse, lol.

* * *

_He is sensible and so incredible  
And all my single friends are jealous  
He says everything I need to hear and it's like  
I couldn't ask for anything better_

I collapse on my bed in my dormitory tonight in a state of some sort of ecstasy, some sort of spinning, whirling joy that eludes any kind of human logic, wisdom, reality.

Here I am, _me_, lying here after yet another fabulous date with James Potter.

Most people wouldn't have thought this possible, me enjoying James's company on my own free-will without someone putting a wand to my pressure points. Honestly, I wouldn't have thought it possible either – because to be frank, way too much has gone wrong between the two of us for any sort of commitment to take place.

And yet here we are, us two, dating and being in each other's lives like there's nothing to it, like it really is as easy as saying, "Hey, wanna go out?"

We've been going out pretty frequently, spending an increasing number of hours together on the weekends. It all started with being Heads and having to interact so much, but now, being Heads is just like a pleasant side-note to what's unfolding to be a great story between us. Now that his head is deflated and he doesn't hex people for the hell of it and he's figured out how to be an acceptable human being in the presence of other human beings, he's quite all right, I must say.

It was so easy to love him this year. Finally, he found the right balance between funny and obnoxious and after that, he fell into my life as easily as blades of grass interlocking in the wind. We get along almost too easily, naturally, and any moron can tell that his childhood adoration of me is being reciprocated right back to him at long last.

This afternoon, when he came to meet me, he was out of his robes and wearing a nice shirt, his hair as neat as he can make it without running Sirius out of hair-potion, and he called me beautiful before slipping his arm around my waist, escorting me to the village because it was a Hogsmeade weekend.

We ate and drank and flirted and teased and went window-shopping, spending the whole day together. Just the two of us – Head Boy and Head Girl, Lily and James – basking in the sunshine and in each other.

Everything was the way I wanted it to be. It was a day planned in the heavens. Everything was perfect.

A little too perfect.

_And he says you look beautiful tonight  
And I feel perfectly fine, but…_

--

_I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain  
And it's two AM and I'm cursing your name_

I vividly remember that one night in the spring, when the sky was pouring out its tears without an end in sight and the warmth of May was far away.

It must have been our third date and Merlin, it was colder than usual and it was late and I was wet and James hadn't had much mercy on the whiskey for the past few hours. We had to leave and he was fuzzy, couldn't tell right from left, and kept babbling jargon at me as I begged him, _begged him_, to come back to the castle with me, get away from the rain drenching us both.

"James, please," I pleaded, rivulets of water getting inside my mouth and making me sputter. "Listen to me, we should go in."

"No," he insisted, swallowing thickly and his hazel eyes on me, hair matted with the water and brow furrowed with irritation and slight confusion. "Lils…"

"James, _listen _to me," I repeated, trying not to let agitation into my voice. Agitation did nothing when he was like this and I knew it, even if I didn't show it. "C'mon. Let's go up to bed."

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at me, giggling stupidly, and I had to hastily amend with my cheeks flaming red, "Merlin, no, _not_ like that, get your mind out of the gutter. I want you to go to sleep, James. You've had enough to drink."

"Have not," he argued half-heartedly, gaze going out to the distance now, feet stumbling beneath him on the slippery mud. He was so heavy and my own feet were slipping and sliding every which way, giving me no place to stand, left in the torrent of rain above me.

"James, come here," I tried again, feeling like a mother with a broken voice-box capable of only the same few phrases, desperate for some way, any way, to reach him. "Don't do this to me."

"Shhh." He stuffed his finger roughly into my lips, his pruny flesh pushing against my teeth, dead serious but somehow so clownish with the musty scent coming off his wet shirt. Then he leaned in and practically fell on me in a sloppy kiss, his lips and tongue willing me to play along, his damp body all over me and pushing me down to the filthy grass because his legs supported him about as well as jelly.

"Be with me, Lils," he breathed, his voice somehow still audible over the noise of the storm around us.

Outraged, I managed to wrench my mouth away and stared right at him, frustrated, before demanding, "What the hell are you doi--?"

He wouldn't let me finish, he just interjected with another one of his careless kisses, his lips meaningful and soft even if slack, and he whispered again into my mouth, "Shhhh."

Once more, I took my mouth away but his weight still crushed me, his lips grazing sloppily around the corner of my mouth, the line of my jaw, scattering his spacey affection to the skin of my wet neck, clenching something behind my navel and sending shivers all over my spine.

"Lily, Lily, Lily," he kept saying into me, pressing me into the scratchy grass full of grime and dirty water, "Lily, Lily, calm down, I love you."

"Let's go in," I ordered, my eyes squinting in the pouring rain, attempting with little success to push him off me, at least getting him a little away from my face, our breaths mingling in the cool, sodden darkness. "Please, James?"

"No," he said again, rolling over so that I was on top of him and he could bring me down on him like a teddy bear, kissing me again and again despite the atmosphere around us, each time saying, "No, no, I love you, stay here."

"Stop it," I said between kisses, hating him for doing this to me and hating myself for letting him. "James, _listen_. _Listen _to me –"

"Shhh." And there, his tongue again, so warm and moist against the cold, watery spring night. "Shhh."

"Don't shush me!" I almost shouted then, though with difficulty, refusing to let him kiss me out of this despite his numerous efforts. "You're so _physical,_ James, quit it!"

"I'm not physical," he mumbled at me, his middle crushing my own, his legs entwined with mine, probably getting me even dirtier.

"You are, and you know what, I don't like it!" I made a valiant effort to kick him away, but he remained where he was, looking more puzzled by the moment.

It was so _frustrating_; I was defenseless, underneath my new boyfriend, having him kiss me and kiss me and think that his hot, whiskey-tainted tongue was going to appease me. Power from my defiance and the freezing rain swelled in my head, in my lungs, in my blood, warming me and strengthening me, as I full out glared at him.

"This isn't going to fix everything, James," I informed him, finally managing to push him away from me and dragging him up to his stumbling feet, shaking his shoulders. "Look at me, _look at me_, and listen to me with open ears. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," he said, cupping my face in his hands. He tried to kiss me again, but I step on his foot and hold _his _face in _my _hands, our lines of vision locking together for at least this moment, despite the showers in us, on us, around us.

"No, you _don't _hear me," I tell him, heated, my voice not really rising but definitely intense. "You know, you never have; you can _never _listen to me or respect my wishes or respect anything about me! You look at me, and you don't see me, and Merlin, James, all I've ever wanted was for you to _see_ _me_."

"I see—"

"No, _you don't_," I reiterated dangerously, gripping his flat, soaking hair tightly, drawing my strength from him the best I can.

"Lils, I love you…" His eyes were alight, gorgeous, innocent, the moon and the rain and my own face visible in them; I could see he wanted me to forgive him, let him go just this once, but I couldn't take him. He was just too much.

So I let him go and I stared at him, distraught, and watched him shake his head like a punch-drunk dog caught in a storm, barely coming to terms with reality. Emotions I could barely distinguish were overflowing inside of me, and I could see him struggling against the elements to come to me, hold on to me, and I couldn't bear him.

He kept drinking tonight, even when I told him the weather was getting rough outside and we should go in, and he never gave me a second thought. He'd always been like that, taking me for granted in his life, asking me out and bothering me and thinking he could still do it all again the next day because he was _James fucking Potter, _always pardoned when things went wrong. He thought he could slip by me like I was a teacher with another boring assignment he didn't want to do; wing everything and pet my head and kiss it all away because I happened to love him; and Merlin, I couldn't handle it.

My blind anger took over and I saw red, red, red, instead of blue and gray and streaks of vivid green; and when he came near me, when he attempted to find me in the middle of the storm, I let my emotion devour me whole, and I pushed him right back into the ground, to the muddy bank.

He shouted at me in a slur, "What the hell?"

And I screamed, "_Damn_ you, James Potter!" right back at him, bile rising in my throat, because I'd had enough.

My salty tears mixed with the pure rain hammering at me like bullets, I let out a primal noise of pure exasperation, not letting him grab me like his stretching hand tried to do.

And then I ran up to the castle where it was warm and safe and I could hide from him and what he could do. Secured by the confines of those walls, I could hide from the rain and the hurt and the boy who could somehow bring them both into sharp, painful relevance…primarily when I least needed him to.

_You're so in love that that you act insane  
And that's the way I loved you  
Breaking down and coming undone  
It's a roller coaster kind of rush_

We used to feel so much back then, back during those first few dates, when he wasn't perfect and he irked me heavily for it. He could rile me up by doing nothing in particular, could absentmindedly attract my love when I really wanted to kill him, could get my blood going in the worst of storms just by coming close enough to my restless fingers.

He never listened to me and I lost my hard-won composure with him for it frequently, most dramatically in the rain that spring night. He always brought out the worst in me and I hated that about him, and yet, he always had me coming back for more; more of him, more of us, more of whatever it was that got me going so strongly, I was afraid I would never stop.

I ran fevers when I was near him, I swear I did; but Merlin, he could make me happy, so happy, and bring me down to my knees when he kissed me hard and husky the next day to win me back to his world, promising me things would change, it would be all right, don't worry, Lily, I love you, I love you.

I love you.

They're the most potent words a man can say to a woman; and may the good Lord help me, I was putty in his hands when he held me close, whispered them in my ear every few days, painted pictures of beautiful tomorrows in my mind before I could even try to shut him out.

_And I never knew I could feel that much  
And that's the way I loved you_

* * *

_He respects my space and never makes me wait  
And he calls exactly when he says he will_

It's been a rough two weeks since our last date, and to be honest, I'm missing my alone time with James. He's been good about helping me with our Head duties and with getting both our homework done on time, but I'd like some pleasure time with him too. He is my boyfriend, after all.

So, during Charms, our last class of the day, I pass him a note asking him if he'd like to come down to the kitchens with her later in the afternoon. It's not exactly allowed, but James loves to eat and I know that, making me sure he won't refuse.

He doesn't – he sends me a note back saying 'sure, okay, when?'

I send one back – 'how about seven? We can make it dinner down there'.

He scrawls, 'Okay; I'll be about done with Quidditch by then and I'll meet you in the common room.'

I nod at him, my smile genuine, and he squeezes my hand on the desk for just a moment – compassionate, gentle, but not compromising my space in the least. We exchange a look and then go back to the lesson of the day, taking notes and barely aware of the other for a while, trying to follow Professor Flitwick's squeaky lecture about the uses of the Fidelius Charm, a spell we won't need to know how to perform but must know in theory.

After class, we write down the homework and leave the room concurrently. Not for the first time, I notice offhandedly that he doesn't hold my hand right away like he used to do in the early stages of our dating – he walks by my side, establishing our relationship, but he doesn't do any more than that, waiting for me to approve the hand-holding.

He does the same when we kiss before parting ways for the afternoon – me up to the dormitory, James to the Quidditch pitch to run the Gryffindor team's practice. I'm the one who leans in first, wanting the kiss, and he obliges gracefully, keeping the weight of his lips light and allowing me to do most of the work. He smiles sweetly as he waves and leaves, but I still miss him when he goes, even though I was just with him and there's no logical reason to feel this way.

He's absolutely wonderful and I know it well, but all the same – he's so polite, so careful, so on the surface instead of breaking me down with a single stare.

He loves me. I know he loves me. Of course, I feel the same way back. But still…

I go to the common room and twitter away about the latest gossip with my friends and do my homework, just like I usually do, having a raucous laugh at Alice's boyfriend, Frank. The poor thing turned his eyebrows pink today without knowing why or how and Alice talks about the incident with such amused but profound affection, it makes my heart ache.

Time flies as things happen. I talk, life goes on; and when the big, deep, grandfather clock of Hogwarts tolls its reverberations around the castle to tell the school its seven o'clock in the evening, I hear someone coming through the portrait hole. Instinctively, I turn, and I see it's James, standing there, on-time and not smelling like dirty Quaffles, with his expression politely interested in me and me alone.

Never making me wait, never doing anything out of place. Just James, his usual smiles and smooth, mellow demeanor in place for me to join him.

I say good-bye to my group of friends and to Alice, who's still weeping with laughter at the silliness of her boyfriend, and let James shyly take my hand; and together, we walk.

_He's charming and endearing and I'm comfortable, but…_

--

_I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain  
And it's two AM and I'm cursing your name_

As kids, we used to be the loudest, most riotous people in the year. It was the way we were – kind of like our alter egos – because we were always so different with each other than we were with everyone else.

Around my friends, I was like any other girl – silly, ditzy, prone to gossip and forgetting to wear clean socks in my early morning rush. I slept in, put off my homework, but somehow managed to retain my place at or near the top of our class, laughing abundantly and taking school as it came to me without questioning much.

But around _James_…Merlin, was I someone else.

I was_ volatile_, to put it lightly.

I was rough, unmanageable, untamable, a forest fire out of control all over the countryside, ready to meet my match over the river, seeing who would be the one to douse the other once and for all. I was a warrior, a beast in some senses of the word, and what made me even more so was the fact that he was exactly the same.

He threw every one of my allegations in my face, something no other male ever did to me. He tugged on my hair and then ran away, so fast that it took me great effort to pin him down and holler him down to nothing. He was infuriating and he knew it, oh how well he knew it, and he got great pleasure from seeing my face red, my body quivering, everything about me on high-alert.

Indeed, the very sight of him made my skin crawl, my systems cringe, and I wanted to rip his face right off of his head (if such a feat was possible), even when he didn't do anything. He drove me _insane_, made me so angry that it eluded the grasp of human comprehension; and if there were words bad enough to describe him in my eyes back then, I would've said all of them until I shattered the very sky.

He was everything I didn't want, everything I didn't need; and yet, I couldn't help it, I played along with every single ruse he had to get under my skin, rising up and fighting back instead of turning away in disgust. I couldn't get enough of the fury he evoked in me. And Merlin, I had to admit it; throughout all our shouting, arguing, fighting, hollering, and various forms of abuse, I'd be a liar if I didn't say there was something _special _about us.

I don't know what it was. Some spark, some word he said, some flash of his tawny-hazel eyes.

Maybe it was the way he could size me up for everything I was with a few carelessly-flung words in the middle of an argument. Maybe it was how soft and childish his mouth looked when he tried to tell me he loved me while saying so much other shit, and how I dreamed perversely about that mouth until I finally allowed myself to kiss it years later.

Maybe it was one singular instance about him, a singular trait of his that triggered me off.

Or maybe it was just all of him, everything he did and how vibrantly he did it.

He lived big in a place so small. Truly, he did. To me, it looked like he just gave himself away, handed himself in a package fully-wrapped to whoever would take him; but he didn't, he didn't. He lived, loved, and although he gave abundantly, he wasn't afraid to need. He was sloppy and rude and disorganized and craved attention like plants craved sunlight and never knew when to shut up, but damn, there was such _soul _to him. It was hard not to admire him, however grudgingly, for being as lively as we all wished we could be. It just worked on him.

When I thought about it like that – on those rare days when he broke me down to my elements, the very core of who I was – it was easy to say he was unusual, not the annoying prat he was usually listed off as.

He was different. He was extraordinary. He was even beautiful for it.

And then I was left with the scary question; the question that I couldn't bring myself to answer before and still can't bring myself to answer:

If James Potter, the only person who's been the same while Hogwarts turned my life upside down, suddenly became a tolerable individual…what would happen to the rest of my world?

_You're so in love that you act insane  
And that's the way I loved you_

Years ago, when James first started announcing me as the next girl worthy of his indelible persistence, those fights I used to have with my friends on the matter used to keep me up _all night _sometimes.

It wasn't so much that they talked me to death until daybreak cracked through the darkness of night. They usually quit after an hour or two, but the ideas we threw back and forth wrestled together in my brain until the small hours of the morning, driving me to the point where I wanted to cut class for pure "love"-sickness.

My friend Alice was the one mainly responsible for drilling the "you-love-James-Potter-and-you'd-better-learn-to-enjoy-it" message into my brain. She stayed up the latest, talked with the most passion, and related _everything _about my life back to James. She tried every approach known to man, from sympathy to downright screaming at me. Those sessions were so uncomfortable and frequently agonizing, because no matter what I said or how I said it, _Alice didn't get it_.

Oh yes, I can hear it now; poor ickle Lily, misunderstood by her friends, harassed by the most flirtatious prick in her year, lost in the sea of voices telling her to go different routes. But truthfully, it is one of the worst things a teenager has to face – sitting there in front of her best friend, the girl that's supposed to know her the best, and have to listen to her talk to me like I was a head-case.

I _didn't love him_. Either she truly didn't believe me or she didn't want to hear me when I repeated this to her, over and over and over again, day and night and every minute in between.

I didn't adore him, nor did I think he was delicious, sexy, worth letting inside my knickers, or any of the ridiculous proposals she sometimes made when she felt like being a fan-girl instead of an honest advisor.

She didn't know how it was, being in the midst of that inferno, out-of-control and so immersed in that heat, in that moment. She didn't know that while I knew I was _feeling_, I wondered fleetingly if I was even here on planet Earth. She didn't know how far I teetered on the edge of sanity, how close I came to falling down, down, deep into the dark, mysterious oblivion. She didn't know the effect he had on me and I didn't care to tell her so.

How could I, anyway?

I was confused, naïve, and even though it _felt_ like my life was fine, there wasn't anything to figure out, I was dead wrong. To me, being around James Potter was a lot like the sensation of plummeting down head-first – no sense of space, no sense of time, no sense of right, wrong, love, hate, feeling, numbness, levity, pain.

My rules were broken and I wasn't where I was comfortable, where I knew what was happening to me. I was so young, I couldn't explain it even if I wanted to, because who would I tell and how would I deal with it?

This wasn't love, but it didn't fit any other description; and gossiping teenagers never care much about accuracy anyway. They'd call it love and the rumor would be out and Potter – big-headed, strange, ardent Potter – would think something untrue and ruin us both for the misinformation. That was the last thing in the world that I wanted; and so instead of confiding in Alice when she got so close to the truth that I wondered if she was a Legilimens, I held tight and said 'no, no, don't be ridiculous; I don't feel that way in the least; it's in your head'.

Looking back, though, I realize that in a way, I was right: it _was_ in Alice's head – the sweetness and the excitement and the anticipation she suggested was never there to begin with.

But the perverse attachment, the strange bending of any rule I deemed correct, the inability to let him out of my thoughts for more than three straight hours…

All of that was there the whole time. I just didn't know what it meant until it was almost too late.

_Breakin' down and coming undone  
It's a roller coaster kinda rush_

When we argued and fought and picked each other apart, whether in public or in private (usually the former), I knew subconsciously that he made me feel _alive, _sharpening my vision and clearing my world from what seemed to be a hazy fog over all I saw. Everything _mattered _with him, nothing was left to chance like his haphazard hair – he never wasted his time with me and when I opened my eyes to him, there was more to him every single time.

He was like a symphony that way, revealing a new meaning or an intriguing little note that I didn't hear the last time. I knew him well, all the basic information, and yet I didn't. I didn't, I knew absolutely nothing about him. He was so wrong with everything I complied with that he felt right and I was used to that, used to the way he drove me insane, and I almost looked forward to the next time he opened his mouth and I cut him to the chase.

He taught me more than the professors of Hogwarts ever did. He gave me everything I needed to know when I was too epic and proud for my own good.

Eventually, I learned my lesson and our clouds cleared, leaving us in the sunshine-and-kisses relationship I'm enjoying now…but something feels wrong.

He used to be as aggravating and careless and silly as he was before, in the early days of our dating, but the moment I told him I didn't like something about him, he took it personally and the next time I saw him, that part of him had simply vanished.

He didn't correct it, didn't tweak it, just obliterated it, like an amputation on his personality.

I thought it was good, thought it was progress, him becoming more and more like the guy I thought I'd love…but looking at him now, he's nothing like the raw, wild, beautiful person he used to be when I got to know him.

Is it really good, is it really progress, if I alter the original human that the world gave me from the very beginning to the point where I don't recognize him anymore? To the point where he doesn't do those stupid things he used to do and his friends (as well as the school) are baffled?

Have I really done something right if he's the perfect guy for _me_, not for anyone else?

Who matters more – me, his girlfriend, his self-proclaimed reason for existence, or the rest of the world that loved him dearly while I could never see him for what he really was?

_And I never knew I could feel that much  
And that's the way I loved you_

* * *

After I'm done with my homework for the night, everything as close to done/accurate as I can make it, it's nearly time for dinner.

I'm feeling strange, I apprehend as I loiter about in the common room, waiting for Alice to come downstairs and go with me to the Great Hall – like there's something missing in me, like there's something off in the winds tonight.

I'm not used to this feeling. It hasn't come about in a long time; but it's here now, and I can't shake it away, can't get it off my mind.

It's almost like this restless buzzing in my legs, deep inside my bones, building up within and sort of worrying me. It keeps me up at night, almost like the ache of sharp anticipation, but I know I'm not waiting for anything – it's enough to make anyone at least a little uneasy in the back of their minds.

When Alice comes down, she smiles brightly at me and gives me a hug, her perfume smelling sweet as I get a great whiff of it.

"Hey, Lils," Alice greets me. "You ready for dinner?"

To be honest, no, I'm not ready for dinner; my stomach isn't feeling particularly wonderful and I've got a lot on my mind at the moment. I consider going down with Alice for the company, but all of a sudden, I decide not to. There's something else that's more important that I should do tonight and it hits me like a shooting star deep in my gut. _Yes_.

So I shake my head at my friend, one of my best friends in the world, and I say, "Erm…you go, Alice. I'll catch up with you later."

Alice looks at me strangely, curiously, but accepts my statement with a nod. "Sure thing," she says. "I'll see you later, then?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course." I manage a smile almost as bright as hers. "I'll be down soon."

Alice shrugs. "Okay." She waves and makes her way to and out the portrait hole, leaving me here in the common room with my daring idea. I tuck my hair behind my ear and bite my lip, willing myself to believe that this is a good idea as I extract a quill and scrap of parchment from my bag and scribble a note on it.

_James,_

_Meet me outside by the Black Lake after dinner._

_-Lils_

I put my things away and magically stick the note to the door of the boy's dormitory, where James probably is right now, or will be very soon. He likes to wash his face and dump his bag off before dinner and I know that. He'll see the note – or at the very least, one of his friends will. They're good about message passing.

When I'm satisfied, I take a long breath and exit the portrait hole to go to the Black Lake myself. It's dark out, naturally, and the moonlight leaves a vague reflection upon the surface, like it's skinny-dipping in the deeply navy water itself. There are two moons in my sight tonight – and it's very nearly full.

Sighing, I walk down to the side bank of the lake and take my shoes off, letting my feet soak and my mind wander. The temperature of the water is pleasantly cool, absolutely perfect, and I rest my weight on the palms of my hand, just thinking…

The reason I'm feeling indistinctly restless is not a mystery to me. It's just a very inconvenient truth; because the fact of the matter is, I only ever feel like this when I'm ready to break up with a boyfriend I really thought I loved.

Of course, I don't want to do that in the least, but I can't deny that something's different about us now.

The young man I started dating earlier this year is naturally not the same boy I used to know when we were younger. That's fine. I never expected him to be, because people change and that boy used to infuriate me. I thought his absence was a good thing – that this person he's becoming with me is an improvement.

And yet…

It's ungrateful to think so, and I'm well aware of it, but this is so _wrong_.

He's handsome and he's sincere and he's everything I could ever dream of, everything I could ever want, but he reminds me of butterbeer without the bubbles – nice, but flat.

He used to be full of bubbles. He used to overflow off the top of the mug. He was hilarious and stupid and reckless and that was what made him so _James_. It defined who he was – comical and passionate and quirky.

_That_ was the person who changed me, who fell in love with me, who earned the right to be resident darling of the year.

Invoking some respect into him is fine, but what I've done to him is inexcusable.

Maybe he was physical. Maybe he never listened to me. Maybe he had a huge head and loved the limelight and held me too close and drove me insane.

But is getting rid of that worth what he is now? Is that worth letting him be cautious and careful, far too polite and perfectly on time and never disagreeing with the passion we used to have? Should I be proud of reducing him to the point where he has to catch my eye before agreeing to go out and do something ridiculous with his friends, coming back too early and not sneaking off to the kitchens for midnight snack?

This guy who tiptoes around me and the rest of the school isn't James. Nobody was like James and that's what made him stick out above the rest, what drove him to make me laugh and cry and smile and love like I never had before. Now, this man could be anyone, anyone at all, fading away into the wallpaper, into the very air.

And I didn't fall in love with just anyone. I fell in love with _James_.

I put my face in my sweaty hands, immersing myself into the darkness of my own palms.

Merlin, what have I done?

_He can't see the smile I'm faking  
And my heart's not breaking  
Cause I'm not feeling anything at all_

Some time between my musings and the moon climbing higher into the sky, dinner ends and people are dismissed and James Potter comes out to the grounds where I'm sitting, thinking about him until it hurts me, until I can't take it anymore.

He sits next to me, quietly, and waits until I notice his presence because I used to hate it when he jumped at me and made my heart stop with sudden fright. I look up at him and see him sitting, not exactly worried but at the very least concerned about me; and I stare at him with a hollow look, waiting, waiting, waiting for him. He doesn't get it.

"Hey, Lil." He seems like he wants to lean in and kiss me hello, but he doesn't. "I got your note. What's up?"

He doesn't get it. Merlin, he doesn't get it. How could he get it? I never cared to figure it out before, never cared to stop him and tell him that no, no, this doesn't make me happy, how could I ever think it made me happy?

He needs to know. I'll make him know. I say to him, "I'll show you," and I stand up, leaving him sitting and locking his gaze with mine. With his uncertainty, and even with his certainty, he's always had the ability to make me fearless.

So because of that, and only because of that, I begin to take my clothes off.

He's visibly astonished as I slip my skirt down and kick it away on the grass, away from the bank and from us. My shoes are already off, so I take off my robes and my sweater and my tie and my shirt, one after the other, rapidly, desperately. I know he doesn't mean to stare, but he does, bewildered, as I look right back at him, as defiant as I can be in just my pale pink undergarments, my skin pale and washed-out in this light.

I've never let him see me without my clothes before and we're both horribly aware of it. With all the sexual pick-up lines he's tried to use on me, he's probably imagined me like this before, but I don't care, I don't care, I don't care about any of that.

Tucking my hair behind my ear to keep it out of my way, I take his hand and pull him up to his feet so that he's standing in front of me. I stroke his cheek, his jaw, as gently as I can. Mostly, I will him to _see _me.

I don't want secrets and I don't want us to be the way we are; so I begin to open his robes and unbutton his pants and screwing with the hair he tries laboriously to tame for me everyday. He's even more startled, but he plays along, kicking off his shoes and socks, removing his shirt and tie and all of that.

I'm relieved that he'll do this for me without explanation, without verbal questioning.

He's done everything wrong so far – it's about time he does something right.

_And you were wild and crazy_

He's staring at me like I'm mad, mad, mad as hell, and painfully, I remember looking at him that same way when he did something out of the ordinary, out of the linear path I'm used to taking. He's standing here in his boxers, watching me in my trainers, and he almost looks afraid, afraid to look too much or touch me or take any kind of advantage of me.

Respect is one thing, but fear of wrong is another. I've made him bypass the acceptable stage and driven him too far. It's time to fix that.

When we were younger, in the middle of our most heated rows, I'd ask him why, why he was bothering me, why he wouldn't bother some other girl and get her blood running at absurd speeds. And then he'd tell me he was saving me, saving me from being boring, saving me from the limitations of being normal.

He did that for me. He achieved his goal. And now, now I'm going to return the favor.

_Just so frustrating_

My jaw set with determination, I take his hand and squeeze it tight, and I tell him, "We're going to do this together."

Somehow, by some miracle, he appears to see exactly what I want and we both turn to the lake. Some of his famous instinct is still buried in him after all. Feeling my start from the firmness of my hand and the readiness of my legs, he and I jump into the lake together, right to the center, jumping high and landing far, the two of us, just the two of us, connected, holding hands.

The water is colder out here when I'm stripped to my undergarments and I'm letting my whole body in, and I think I hear James making some kind of surprised noise next to me, but it feels _right_.

It's like before, like when he used to take my world by storm – when he spun me around and drove me mad and refreshed me, a rush of cold on my agitated warmth, a rush of beautiful lunacy on my overabundant logic, a rush of _life_…

_Intoxicating, complicated_

He used to look at me like I was magical, like I was special. I wasn't fragile, I wasn't some girl who required individual attention. I was _someone_. He consumed me whole, him and all he was, and Merlin, it was chaotic, but it was glorious, enthralling, stunning.

_Got away by some mistake_

I want it back. I want it all. Here in the middle of the lake, as I cuddle in closer to him, my eyes never leaving his, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything.

I'm sorry I waited so long to give him the chance he deserved twenty million times over. I'm sorry I made him think he wasn't enough for me. I'm sorry I made him change. I'm sorry he loved me when I least deserved it. I'm sorry I was the one responsible for stripping him of his confident, idiotic, muddled splendor.

I'm sorry I didn't see. I'm sorry I couldn't be sorry before.

_And now…_

He's staring at me as I find within myself new, rejuvenated life, but he's staring at me differently than he did before. There's something about today, this night, this moment, which changes us so wholly, but so intimately, that although it isn't visible, it feels tangible.

I press my wet body completely against him and feel his shape, his muscles, everything about him; and with the moon as my witness, I throw my arms around him and kiss him hard in a fit of passion.

He's taken by surprise not for the first time, but I'm suspecting this is his favorite change of the night. Immediately, he takes in the urgency of my lips and responds with his own pressure, his own singular love for me, the love he's always had for me.

I know no barriers tonight, snogging the bloody hell out of him like I've wanted to for a long time, like he used to do to me when I pushed him away and criticized him for being too physical.

I can't have enough of him. There _isn't _enough of him. It's all us, together, our lips having their skittering, long over-due debriefing in the cover of the moonlight, reuniting like we've only just gotten to know each other. I feel him moan against my mouth from deep inside him, pulling me in closer and kissing me harder, harder, faster, meeting absolutely no resistance.

I feel like I'm melting in the best way possible, melting into him; because of the numerous people I know, he's the one I will trust with me, all of me. This is how it should be, even if we are in the middle of a lake in our underwear. I don't know how I've gone so long without _him_, and I vow to myself to never lose him again.

We pull away with great difficulty, and when he looks back at me, gone is the confusion of a few minutes previous. That sparkle is back in his eyes, in his face, in the potency of his gaze. Maybe it's not like it used to be, but it's enough, and it gives me hope.

So I lean in and kiss him again, but gently this time – slow, dulcet, savory. It's bliss, and he'd better know it, as he holds me, holds me close, holds me like he knows I'm never letting go. Each kiss melts into the next, and the next, and the one after that, our mouths experienced and knowing what to do.

He invites me in and everything about this moment, every single thing, from his sharp boy smell to the cold water to the moist warmth of his lips to the way our legs are entwining; it's gorgeous and I wouldn't change a damn thing. I am in nirvana. James Potter is my nirvana, because he inspires in me a happiness that the greatest lover would envy.

And as we stand there in middle of the lake, a few young hours into the night, frozen in our own alternate version of time separate from the rest of the world, he kisses me softly and into my mouth he whispers those four potent words of his, "I love you, Lily."

He means them; really, truly means them with all he has, so much so that I can feel it deep in my bones. My wet hands on his face, I kiss him back and let the emotion overflow like bubbling butterbeer as I respond with, "I'm sorry."

I don't say why, I don't say how, I don't add anything on; I just kiss him again, again, again, and he gets it. His hands are on the curve of my waist, his fingers loving and wonderful, knowing just how to touch me, as if he was born to try.

He will be okay and I will not give up on him. I don't want to and hell, I don't have to. We will never be perfect, but Merlin, there's no such thing as perfect, and if there is, I don't want it.

He is not perfect, but anybody who loves me the way he does…how much he does…I know he's got to be worth it all.

_Never knew I could feel that much  
And that's the way I loved you_

* * *

**A/N**: So there you go...this is the last fic I perfected in 2008 and the first one I've posted for you in 2009. Thank you so much for believing in me and reading my shit and actually enjoying it. If I could personally give you a big bear hug to show you how very awesome you are, I would, so pretend I am right now. _Thank you, thank you, thank you_.

The big, sexy review button is right down there, so be sure to visit it and do your first good deed of the year. Thanks one more time and let's make this a great 2009!  
Xx


End file.
